St. Charles East trips up Streamwood
These Saints know how to adapt.
St. Charles East recognized early in Tuesday's 66-55 Upstate Eight River victory at Streamwood it would be a tightly officiated game, so Saints coach Patrick Woods told his players to draw fouls whenever possible.
"Coach stressed from the beginning to come out really aggressive, and if it looks anything like a foul just go up with him, try to draw contact and get to the line," said Saints guard Dom Adduci, who scored 6 of his 14 points at the line. "We saw the refs were calling it tight, so we wanted to get to the line as much as possible."
St. Charles East (11-8, 6-3) made 16 of 18 first-half free-throw attempts to forge an 8-point lead, then used two scoring bursts to keep short-handed Streamwood (4-17, 1-8) at bay.
St. Charles East made 23 of 26 free throws overall.
"I thought in the first half we did a better job of running the floor," said Woods, whose Saints average 15 free-throw attempts and shoot 71 percent from the line. "They seemed to be chasing us a lot. And we were trying to go inside a little bit and attack the basket a little more when our shots weren't falling early in the game. It was a combination of both."
Streamwood (4-17, 1-8), played without 6-foot-3 junior forward Joel Lightbourne, who hurt his knee against Larkin last week. He will have his knee examined today, coach Tim Jones said. Lightbourne was his team's second-leading scorer (7 ppg) and averaged 4.6 rebounds.
The Sabres nonetheless trimmed the Saints' lead to 24-20 on a bucket by Dalton Lundeen with 3:40 left in the second quarter.
The Saints countered with a 9-0 run to close the half. A transition bucket by Brent Kage and a 3-pointer by Drew Ludke (15 points) opened the surge. Kendall Stephens and Ludke capped it when each sank a pair of free throws for a 33-20 halftime lead.
The Sabres outscored the Saints 22-16 in the third quarter, when leading scorer Brandon Larkin-Guilfoyle scored 12 of his game-best 24 points, including a pair of 3-point shots.
"We played hard. We gave a great effort," Streamwood coach Tim Jones said. "We were limited in what we could do. We had a lot of shots, a lot of decent looks, but we were a little crazy with the ball at times."
In fact, the Sabres committed 4 of their 20 turnovers in the first 1:50 of the fourth quarter, which fueled St. Charles East's 10-0 run to open the period.
"We had it within 7 but let it slip away," Larkin-Guilfoyle said. "It's kind of been the story of our year. We break it down and need a big shot, then they make a run and there it is."
Stephens (18 points) and Johnny Hondlik (4 points) each scored twice in the Saints' game-deciding spree.
"I kind of challenged them because we were a little disappointed we lost the third quarter," Woods said. "We set benchmarks throughout the game and the start of the third quarter is big. We lost the third quarter in general and were disappointed in that."
St. Charles East upped its lead to as many as 19 points with 2:40 to play before the Sabres scored 11 straight to make the final score more respectable. Brent Kiesel sank a pair of 3-pointers for Streamwood during that stretch.
The victory keeps St. Charles East a game behind Elgin, Geneva and St. Charles North in the River Division loss column with 3 division games to play.
The Saints return to action Friday against visiting Elgin. Streamwood plays tonight at St. Charles North.